Rooting: the "how to's" and "why for's". This blog can also be thought of as a tutorial. For now, in the Blog Archive (on the right) you'll find a step by step guide to rooting an HTC Hero for Sprint. More phones to come.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

WARNING: by rooting your phone, you are choosing to void your phone's warranty. Proceed at your own risk. Know that you are choosing to do this. No one is making you. Further, you are the one doing this, not me.

Ok, so now that we have successfully migrated to build 2.27.651.5 our HTC Hero for Sprint is "vulnerable" to rooting. The rooting option that we will explore in this post is the "unrevoked" option. This is, by far, the easiest option for rooting the phone. I will explore a more "hands on" or traditional exploit in a later post for anyone who is interested in how to exploit 2.27.651.5's vulnerability from the command line.

For now, let's root our HTC Hero using the unrevoked method.

IMPORTANT NOTE:if you have not already migrated to build 2.27.651.5 or have no idea what I'm talking about, click here. You will NOT be able to root your phone using this method if you have not reverted to 2.27.651.5.

If you know that you are running 2.27.651.5 then move on to Step 1.

Step 1: Plug your phone into your computer using your USB cable.

Step 2: Set your phone to "Charge Only".

Step 3: On your phone, navigate to http://unrevoked.com/m/

Step 4: Tap to download the unrevoked exploit.

Step 5: Once the download is complete, install the unrevoked app.

Step 6: Once the unrevoked app is installed, go to your apps collection and run the unrevoked app.

After Step 7, you should get confirmation that your phone has been rooted.

Step 8: Go to your apps tray. Inside you should find the "Super User" app (Little Ninja with a Gun). Tap this app and you will be asked to set a permission. Approve it and your phone is officially rooted.

While it's true that your phone is rooted and that you can take advantage of apps that require root privileges there are some further steps that you need to take in order to get the most of your rooted HTC Hero.

In the next post, we will look at Nandriod, making backups and restoring backups. Knowing how to work with Nandroid is absolutely essential for loading custom ROMs.